British rock describes a wide variety of forms of music made in the United Kingdom. Since around 1964, with the "British Invasion" of the United States spearheaded by the Beatles, British rock music has had a considerable impact on the development of American music and rock music across the world.[1]

Initial attempts to emulate American rock and roll took place in Britain in the mid-1950s, but the terms "rock music" and "rock" usually refer to the music derived from the blues-rock and other genres that emerged during the 1960s. The term is often used in combination with other terms to describe a variety of hybrids or subgenres, and is often contrasted with pop music, with which it shares many structures and instrumentation. Rock music has tended to be more orientated toward the albums market, putting an emphasis on innovation, virtuosity, performance and song writing by the performers.[2]

Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957

In the 1950s, Britain was well placed to receive American rock and roll music and culture.[3] It shared a common language, had been exposed to American culture through the stationing of troops in the country, and shared many social developments, including the emergence of distinct youth sub-cultures, which in Britain included the Teddy Boys.[4]Trad Jazz became popular, and many of its musicians were influenced by related American styles, including Boogie Woogie and the Blues.[5] The skiffle craze, led by Lonnie Donegan, utilised amateurish versions of American folk songs and encouraged many of the subsequent generation of rock and roll, folk, R&B and beat musicians to start performing.[6] At the same time British audiences were beginning to encounter American rock and roll, initially through films including Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Rock Around the Clock (1955).[7] Both films contained the Bill Haley & His Comets hit "Rock Around the Clock", which first entered the British charts in early 1955 - four months before it reached the US pop charts - topped the British charts later that year and again in 1956, and helped identify rock and roll with teenage delinquency.[8] American rock and roll acts such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Buddy Holly thereafter became major forces in the British charts.

The initial response of the British music industry was to attempt to produce copies of American records, recorded with session musicians and often fronted by teen idols.[3] British rock and rollers soon began to appear, including Wee Willie Harris and Tommy Steele.[3] The bland or wholly imitative form of much British rock and roll in this period meant that the American product remained dominant. However, in 1958 Britain produced its first "authentic" rock and roll song and star, when Cliff Richard reached number 2 in the charts with "Move It".[9] British impresario Larry Parnes fashioned young singers to the new trend, giving them corny names such as Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Vince Eager. At the same time, TV shows such as Six-Five Special and Oh Boy!, both produced by Jack Good, promoted the careers of British rock and rollers like Marty Wilde and Adam Faith.[3] Cliff Richard and his backing band The Shadows were the most successful home grown rock and roll based acts of the era.[10] Other leading acts included Joe Brown, and Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, whose 1960 hit song "Shakin' All Over" became a rock and roll standard.[3] The first American rock and roll artist to hit British stages and appear on television was Gene Vincent in December 1959, soon joined on tour by his friend Eddie Cochran. The producer Joe Meek was the first to produce sizeable rock hits in England, culminating with The Tornados' instrumental "Telstar", which went to number one in both the UK and USA.

In late 1950s Britain a flourishing culture of groups began to emerge, often out of the declining skiffle scene, in major urban centres in the UK like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and London. This was particularly true in Liverpool, where it has been estimated that there were around 350 different bands active, often playing ballrooms, concert halls and clubs.[11] These beat bands were heavily influenced by American groups of the era, such as Buddy Holly and the Crickets (from which group The Beatles derived their name), as well as earlier British groups such as The Shadows.[12] After the national success of the Beatles in Britain from 1962, a number of Liverpool performers were able to follow them into the charts, including Gerry & The Pacemakers, The Searchers, and Cilla Black. Among the most successful beat acts from Birmingham were The Spencer Davis Group and The Moody Blues; The Animals came from Newcastle, and Them, featuring Van Morrison, from Belfast. From London, the term Tottenham Sound was largely based around The Dave Clark Five, but other London bands that benefited from the beat boom of this era included the Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Yardbirds. The first non-Liverpool, non-Brian Epstein-managed band to break through in the UK were Freddie and the Dreamers, who were based in Manchester,[13] as were Herman's Hermits and The Hollies.[14] The beat movement provided most of the bands responsible for the British invasion of the American pop charts in the period after 1964, and furnished the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, particularly through their small group format - typically lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar, drums, and often keyboards, either with a lead singer or with one of the other musicians taking lead vocals and the others providing vocal harmonies.

In parallel with beat music, in the late 1950s and early 1960s a British blues scene was developing recreating the sounds of American R&B and later particularly the sounds of bluesmen Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters.[15] Initially led by purist blues followers such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies, it reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of the genre including The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin. A number of these moved through Blues-rock to different forms of rock music, with increasing emphasis on technical virtuosity and improvisational skills. As a result British blues helped to form many of the subgenres of rock, including psychedelic rock and heavy metal music. Since then direct interest in the blues in Britain has declined, but many of the key performers have returned to it in recent years, new acts have emerged and there have been a renewed interest in the genre.[15]

The Beatles themselves were less influenced by blues music than the music of later American genres such as soul and Motown. Their popular success in Britain in the early 1960s was matched by their new and highly influential emphases on their own song writing, and on technical production values, some of which were shared by other British beat groups. On 7 February 1964, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite ran a story about The Beatles' United States arrival in which the correspondent said "The British Invasion this time goes by the code name Beatlemania".[16] A few days later, they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.[17] Seventy five percent of Americans watching television that night viewed their appearance thus "launching"[18] the invasion with a massive wave of chart success that would continue until the Beatles broke up in 1970. On 4 April 1964, the Beatles held the top 5 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, the only time to date that any act has accomplished this.[18][19] During the next two years, Peter and Gordon, The Animals, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits, The Rolling Stones, The Troggs, and Donovan would have one or more number one singles in the US.[20] Other acts that were part of the "invasion" included The Who, The Kinks, and The Dave Clark Five;[18] these acts were also successful within the UK, although clearly the term "British Invasion" itself was not applied there except as a description of what was happening in the USA. So-called "British Invasion" acts influenced fashion, haircuts and manners of the 1960s of what was to be known as the "Counterculture". In particular, the Beatles' movie A Hard Day's Night and fashions from Carnaby Street led American media to proclaim England as the centre of the music and fashion world.[20] The success of British acts of the time, particularly that of the Beatles themselves, has been seen as revitalising rock music in the US and influenced many American bands to develop their sound and style.[1] The growth of the British music industry itself, and its increasingly prominent global role in the forefront of changing popular culture, also enabled it to discover and first establish the success of new rock artists from elsewhere in the world, notably Jimi Hendrix and, in the early 1970s, Bob Marley.[2]

By the early 1970s, rock music had become more mainstream, and internationalised, with many British acts becoming massively successful in the United States and globally. Some of the most successful artists, such as Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Elton John, David Bowie, and Rod Stewart performed their own songs (and in some cases those written by others) in an eclectic variety of styles, in which the presentation of the performance itself became increasingly important.[23] By way of contrast, Status Quo became one of the most successful British rock acts by presenting an apparently unsophisticated style of boogie-based rock music;[24] and Van Morrison gained international critical acclaim through a blend of rock, jazz and blues styles.[25] Some well-established British bands that began their careers in the British Invasion, notably The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, also developed their own particular styles and expanded their international fan base during that period, but would be joined by new acts in new styles and subgenres.[26]

Electric folk is the name given to the kind of folk rock pioneered in England at the end of the 1960s, particularly by the band Fairport Convention.[27] Rather than mixing electric music with forms of American influenced progressive folk, it used traditional English music as its basis.[28] An early success was Fairport Convention's 1969 album Liege and Lief, but it became more significant in the 1970s, when it was taken up by groups such as Pentangle, Steeleye Span and the Albion Band.[28] It was rapidly adopted and developed in the surrounding Celtic cultures of Brittany, where it was pioneered by Alan Stivell and bands like Malicorne; in Ireland by groups such as Horslips; and also in Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man and Cornwall, to produce Celtic rock and its derivatives.[29] It was also influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain, such as the USA and Canada and gave rise to the subgenre of Medieval folk rock and the fusion genres of folk punk and folk metal.[28] By the end of the 1970s the genre was in steep decline in popularity, as other forms of music, including punk and electronic began to be established.[28]

Progressive or prog rock developed out of late 1960s blues-rock and psychedelic rock. Dominated by British bands, it was part of an attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility.[30] Progressive rock bands attempted to push the technical and compositional boundaries of rock by going beyond the standard verse-chorus-based song structures. The arrangements often incorporated elements drawn from classical, jazz, and international sources later called "world music". Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy. Progressive rock bands sometimes used concept albums that made unified statements, usually telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme.[30]King Crimson's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King, which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron, with jazz and symphonic music, is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in the early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The term was applied to the music of bands such as Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine, Electric Light Orchestra, Procol Harum, Hawkwind, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.[30] It reached its peak of popularity in the mid-1970s, but had mixed critical acclaim and the punk movement can be seen as a reaction against its musicality and perceived pomposity.[31] Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored Top Ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours.[32]

Glam or glitter rock developed in the UK in the post-hippie early 1970s. It was characterised by "outrageous" clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots.[33] The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were a campy, playing with categories of sexuality in a theatrical blend of nostalgic references to science fiction and old movies, all over a guitar-driven hard rock sound.[34] Pioneers of the genre included David Bowie, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, Marc Bolan and T.Rex.[34] These, and many other acts straddled the divide between pop and rock music, managing to maintain a level of respectability with rock audiences, while enjoying success in the UK singles chart, including Queen and Elton John. Other performers aimed much more directly for the popular music market, where they were the dominant groups of their era, including Slade, Wizzard, Mud and Sweet.[34] The glitter image was pushed to its limits by Gary Glitter and The Glitter Band. Largely confined to the British, glam rock peaked during the mid-1970s, before it disappeared in the face of punk rock and new wave trends.[34]

Although NWOBHM inspired many new bands, in the late 1980s much of the creative impetus in the genre moved away from Britain to American and continental Europe (particularly Germany and Scandinavia), which produced most of the major new subgenres of metal, which were then taken up by British acts. These included thrash metal and death metal, both developed in the USA; black metal and power metal, both developed in continental Europe, but influenced by the British band Venom; and doom, which was developed in the USA but which soon had a number of bands from England, including Pagan Altar and Witchfinder General.[37] There's also a large British influence in the doom/gothic metal scene, pioneered by such bands as Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride and Anathema. Grindcore, or simply grind, was a hybrid of death metal and hardcore punk, characterized by heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, high speed tempo, blast beats, songs often lasting no more than two minutes (some are seconds long), and vocals which consist of growls and high-pitched screams. Pioneers, the British band Napalm Death inspired other British grindcore groups in the 1980s, among them Extreme Noise Terror, Carcass and Sore Throat.[38]

Probably the most successful British metal band since the days of NWOBHM were Cradle of Filth, formed in 1991, and pursuing a form of extreme metal that is difficult to categorise.[39] The term "retro-metal" has been applied to such bands as The Darkness, whose mix of glam rock and heavy riffs earned them a string of singles hits and a quintuple platinum album with One Way Ticket to Hell... and Back (2005), which reached number 11 in the UK charts.[40]Bullet for My Valentine, from Wales, broke into the top 5 in both the U.S. and British charts with their metalcore, a mixture of metal and hardcore, with Scream Aim Fire (2008).[41]

Punk rock developed between 1974 and 1976, originally in the United States, where it was rooted in garage rock, and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music.[45] The first punk band is usually thought to be the Ramones from 1976. This was taken up in Britain by bands also influenced by the pub rock scene, like the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned, particularly in London, who became the vanguard of a new musical and cultural movement, blending simple aggressive sounds and lyrics with clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.[46] Punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock, creating fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics.[46] Punk embraced a DIY (do it yourself) ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them through informal channels.[46] 1977 saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major international cultural phenomenon. However, by 1978, the initial impulse had subsided and punk had morphed into the wider and more diverse New Wave and post-punk movements.[46]

As the initial punk impulse began to subside, with the major punk bands either disbanding or taking on new influences, the term New Wave began to be used to describe particularly British bands that emerged in the later 1970s with mainstream appeal. These included pop bands like XTC, Squeeze and Nick Lowe, the electronic rock of Gary Numan as well as songwriters like Elvis Costello, rock & roll influenced bands like the Pretenders, the reggae influenced music of bands like The Police, as well as bands of the ska revival like The Specials and Madness.[47] By the end of the decade many of these bands, most obviously the Police, were beginning to make an impact in American and world markets.[48]

From its inception in 1981, the cable music channel MTV featured a disproportionate amount of music videos from image conscious British acts.[56] In the fall of 1982, "I Ran (So Far Away)" by A Flock of Seagulls entered the Billboard Top Ten, arguably the first successful song that owed almost everything to video.[56] They would be followed by bands like Duran Duran whose glossy videos would come to symbolise the power of MTV.[56]Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" gently poked fun at MTV which had helped make them international rock stars.[57] In 1983, 30% of the record sales were from British acts. 18 of the Top 40 and 6 of the Top 10 singles on 18 July were by British artists. Overall record sales would rise by 10% from 1982.[56][58]Newsweek featured Annie Lennox of Eurythmics and Boy George of Culture Club on the cover of one of its issues, while Rolling Stone would release an "England Swings" issue.[56] In April 1984, 40 of the Top 100 singles were from British acts while 8 of the Top 10 singles in a May 1985 survey were of British origin.[59] Veteran music journalist Simon Reynolds theorised that similar to the first British Invasion the use of black American influences by the British acts helped to spur success.[56] Commentators in the mainstream media credited MTV and the British acts with bringing colour and energy back to pop music while rock journalists were generally hostile to the phenomenon because they felt it represented image over content.[56]

Post rock originated in the release of Talk Talk's album Laughing Stock and US band Slint's Spiderland, both in 1991, which produced experimental work influenced by sources as varied as electronica, jazz, and minimalist classical music, often abandoning the traditional song format in favour of instrumental and ambient music.[67] The term was first used to describe the band Bark Psychosis and their album Hex (1994), but was soon employed for bands such as Stereolab, Laika, Disco Inferno and Pram and other acts in America and Canada.[67] Scottish group Mogwai are one of the influential post-rock groups to arise at the turn of the 21st century.[68]

Initially dubbed as 'C86' after the 1986 NME tape, and also known as "cutie", "shambling bands" and later as "twee pop",[69][70] indie pop was characterised by jangling guitars, a love of sixties pop and often fey, innocent lyrics.[71] It was also inspired by the DIY scene of punk and there was a thriving fanzine, label and club and gig circuit. Early bands included The Pastels, The Shop Assistants and Primal Scream. Scenes later developed in the United States particularly around labels such as K Records. Genres such as Riot Grrrl and bands as diverse as Nirvana, Manic Street Preachers, and Belle and Sebastian have all acknowledged its influence.

Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s.[64] The movement developed as a reaction against various musical and cultural trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, particularly the grunge phenomenon from the United States.[64] New British groups such as Suede and Blur launched the movement by positioning themselves as opposing musical forces, referencing British guitar music of the past and writing about uniquely British topics and concerns. These bands were soon joined by others including Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass and Elastica.[64] Britpop groups brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the backbone of a larger British cultural movement called Cool Britannia.[72] Although its more popular bands were able to spread their commercial success overseas, especially to the United States, the movement largely fell apart by the end of the decade.[64]

From about 1997, as dissatisfaction grew with the concept of Cool Britannia, and Britpop as a movement began to dissolve, emerging bands began to avoid the Britpop label while still producing music derived from it.[73][74] Many of these bands tended to mix elements of British traditional rock (or British trad rock),[75] particularly the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Small Faces,[76] with American influences, including post-grunge.[77][78] Post-Britpop bands like The Verve, Radiohead, Travis, Stereophonics, Placebo, Feeder, and particularly Coldplay, achieved much wider international success than most of the Britpop groups that had preceded them, and were some of the most commercially successful acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s.[78][79][80][81]